Pascal’s Wager

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That was the response of an atheist coworker of mine as well. He asked which God? Even though I told him there is only one he isn’t convinced. I’m curious how to respond to that. He has a point because faith to him is believing without the evidence. That’s not the definition of faith but it is his definition of faith. He will not bend.
 
gmcbroom said:
That was the response of an atheist coworker of mine as well. He asked which God? Even though I told him there is only one he isn’t convinced. I’m curious how to respond to that. He has a point because faith to him is believing without the evidence. That’s not the definition of faith but it is his definition of faith. He will not bend.
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As far as “He asked which God?”

I believe that is quite the legitimate question since others that do believe in God, do not necessarily believe in the God that you believe in.

I believe that there is only One God also but that doesn’t mean that others believe as such.

Concerning, “He has a point because faith to him is believing without the evidence. That’s not the definition of faith but it is his definition of faith.”

Didn’t Jesus, I am just guessing that you are referring to Jesus as God, say something to the effect, “Blessed are those who have NOT seen, yet believe”?

I would say that very few people have any “evidence” for the “faith” that they “believe in” and those that do, I would say have subjective, rather thank objective, evidence.

Do you have any “evidence” for the “faith” that you have?

And if you do, what is it?
 
Tom
Thank you for explaining it in that fashion. I did have what I would term a spiritual experience in my 20’s that converted me to the faith. Though it wasn’t a pleasant one. I explained it to my atheist coworker and he thought that I was just hallucinating. So I guess he has a point. Still, even if he can dismiss it as is his right. I will not as it felt to real and personal for me to dismiss in such a fashion. That experience caused me to seriously start my journey that eventually led me to the Catholic Church.
 
gmcbroom said:
Tom
Thank you for explaining it in that fashion. I did have what I would term a spiritual experience in my 20’s that converted me to the faith. Though it wasn’t a pleasant one. I explained it to my atheist coworker and he thought that I was just hallucinating. So I guess he has a point. Still, even if he can dismiss it as is his right. I will not as it felt to real and personal for me to dismiss in such a fashion. That experience caused me to seriously start my journey that eventually led me to the Catholic Church.
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And you SHOULDN’T dismiss it.

I would, personally, say that most people’s personal “experiences” concerning God would appear to most anyone else as “different” from anyone else’s everyday experiences.

I have had a few and I would say that I am either one of the biggest nutbags that God has ever created or that I have, most definitely, had experiences with what is referred to as the “supernatural” and not just with God.

I can understand your saying, “I did have what I would term a spiritual experience in my 20’s that converted me to the faith. Though it wasn’t a pleasant one.”

I have had “experiences” that I would wish on everyone and I have had “experiences” that I would wish on no one.

However, I am thankful to God for all of them.
 
gmcbroom said:
Tom
Thank you for explaining it in that fashion. I did have what I would term a spiritual experience in my 20’s that converted me to the faith. Though it wasn’t a pleasant one. I explained it to my atheist coworker and he thought that I was just hallucinating. So I guess he has a point. Still, even if he can dismiss it as is his right. I will not as it felt to real and personal for me to dismiss in such a fashion. That experience caused me to seriously start my journey that eventually led me to the Catholic Church.
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I think this is a good example of “it takes what it takes”, because everyone is different. When it comes to conversion experiences, they have to come in a “language” or form we understand.

Earlier in this discussion someone said that PW is what got them thinking and on the road to belief. Others find PW ridiculous and even against working towards conversion. Even the very same words or experience will hit two different people in very different ways. What converts one poisons another.

Even hallucinations (not saying that is what you experienced) are unique to each person and I’ve heard people outright say that a particular hallucination changed how they saw things ever after, even when they admit it WAS a hallucination!

I think it really takes what it takes. There are people who were born in the faith, raised in the faith, believed the faith but prayer, sacrifice and desire to know God brought them nothing. Others were outside the faith, even hostile to faith yet God reached out to them in a personal powerful way and brought them to the faith.

PW may get people thinking, may open their mind to possibilities, but if the Holy Spirit doesn’t step in…what happens next is up in the air.
 
gmcbroom said:
That was the response of an atheist coworker of mine as well. He asked which God? Even though I told him there is only one he isn’t convinced. I’m curious how to respond to that. He has a point because faith to him is believing without the evidence. That’s not the definition of faith but it is his definition of faith. He will not bend.
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Christianity is not based upon the sayings of a guru but upon an event: the resurrection.

Faith is ultimately required, but the historical evidence for that event is verifiable and compelling. This is not the case for other world religions.
 
gmcbroom said:
Tom
Thank you for explaining it in that fashion. I did have what I would term a spiritual experience in my 20’s that converted me to the faith. Though it wasn’t a pleasant one. I explained it to my atheist coworker and he thought that I was just hallucinating. So I guess he has a point. Still, even if he can dismiss it as is his right. I will not as it felt to real and personal for me to dismiss in such a fashion. That experience caused me to seriously start my journey that eventually led me to the Catholic Church.
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The “hallucinating” thing seems to be a common tactic of atheists. Problem is, people don’t just “hallucinate,” ordinarily. If one had never hallucinated before some “event”, has never hallucinated since, has not been diagnosed with some time of schizophrenia, which typically appears when a person is in their 20’s (and which will cause them to hallucinate many times, without treatment), and did not take a hallucinogenic substance immediately beforehand, then that person probably did not hallucinate. IOW, a person in good physical and mental condition with no history of serious mental illness does not just “randomly” hallucinate.
 
dcana said:
The “hallucinating” thing seems to be a common tactic of atheists. Problem is, people don’t just “hallucinate,” ordinarily. If one had never hallucinated before some “event”, has never hallucinated since, has not been diagnosed with some time of schizophrenia, which typically appears when a person is in their 20’s (and which will cause them to hallucinate many times, without treatment), and did not take a hallucinogenic substance immediately beforehand, then that person probably did not hallucinate. IOW, a person in good physical and mental condition with no history of serious mental illness does not just “randomly” hallucinate.
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(Playing my own devil’s advocate) Ahh, but maybe all these claims of people experiencing unexplainable events or visions are evidence that random hallucinations do, in fact, occur.

(answering myself) Hmm. I still hold that “a person in good physical and mental condition with no history of serious mental illness does not just “randomly” hallucinate”. Things happen for a reason. If a person has a heart attack, the reason is that their coronary arteries were clogged with plaque. If someone can’t breathe, the reason may be that they have asthma, have a 300-lb person sitting on them, or there is some other reason why their airways are constricted. Same thing when people hallucinate. There is some reason why their brain is not functioning correctly. They may have schizophrenia, they may have a 108-degree temperature, or they may have just taken a hit of LSD. But their is some reason. If someone experiences something unexplainable and there is no rational reason for them to be hallucinating, then they probably were not hallucinating, though it is possible that they were hallucinating for some unknown reason. But it is not likely, since, just like everything else in our experience, 99% of the time when something happens, there will be an obvious - or not-so-obvious, but still knowable - reason why it happened.
 
(devil’s advocate again) But isn’t it more reasonable to assume that a person was hallucinating for some unknown reason, as explained above - even granting that it is true that the vast majority of the time, things happen for obvious reasons - than to accept that the person actually had some kind of divine vision?

(answering myself) ?

“Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.”
 
As long as we’re just being safe, what is to stop us from studying comparative religion and practicing as many world religions as is logically possible? If belief is a matter of choice there is nothing stopping one from being Catholic on Sunday, switching to Buddhism mid week, then on over the Hinduism for a bit, Muslim on a Friday, and then rounding out the week as Jewish. If belief in a god is safe, then pleasing as many gods as logically possible would seem to be the way to go.
 
Burt_Macklin said:
As long as we’re just being safe, what is to stop us from studying comparative religion and practicing as many world religions as is logically possible? If belief is a matter of choice there is nothing stopping one from being Catholic on Sunday, switching to Buddhism mid week, then on over the Hinduism for a bit, Muslim on a Friday, and then rounding out the week as Jewish. If belief in a god is safe, then pleasing as many gods as logically possible would seem to be the way to go.
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No, because some religions claim that you must only be practicing their religion in order to be saved. This is where Pascal’s Wager falls short.
 
gmcbroom said:
That was the response of an atheist coworker of mine as well. He asked which God? Even though I told him there is only one he isn’t convinced. I’m curious how to respond to that. He has a point because faith to him is believing without the evidence. That’s not the definition of faith but it is his definition of faith. He will not bend.
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While that question might seem profound, it is basically a diversion tactic. I’ve seen it many times. I often see that atheists, when confronted with a particular argument for the existence of God, acts as if that is the only argument in existence, and often ignore what a particular argument tries to prove.

This argument doesn’t really prove the existence of God, or a deity, but proves that it can be reasonable to believe that God exists. This argument obviously needs to be combined with other arguments, like the cosmological argument, and with arguments surrounding Christ, and especially his resurrection.

The case for Christianity is the conclusion to many arguments or many pieces of data.

And as to his definition of faith, I would answer that it is impossible to lead a discussion when one of the participants uses an idiosyncratic definition of one of the key terms, a definition without any precedence.
 
KjetilK said:
While that question might seem profound, it is basically a diversion tactic. I’ve seen it many times. I often see that atheists, when confronted with a particular argument for the existence of God, acts as if that is the only argument in existence, and often ignore what a particular argument tries to prove.

This argument doesn’t really prove the existence of God, or a deity, but proves that it can be reasonable to believe that God exists. This argument obviously needs to be combined with other arguments, like the cosmological argument, and with arguments surrounding Christ, and especially his resurrection.

The case for Christianity is the conclusion to many arguments or many pieces of data.

And as to his definition of faith, I would answer that it is impossible to lead a discussion when one of the participants uses an idiosyncratic definition of one of the key terms, a definition without any precedence.
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Well, speaking from my own experience, I honestly questioned whether to believe in the God of Judaism, the God of Christianity, or the God of Islam. No diversion tactic.
 
icamhif said:
Well, speaking from my own experience, I honestly questioned whether to believe in the God of Judaism, the God of Christianity, or the God of Islam. No diversion tactic.
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Yes, but that has to be on the basis of examining a whole string of arguments. You cannot simply say: “Well that particular argument didn’t answer all my questions, therefore Christianity must be wrong.” And that is am attitude I see often, especially online.
 
And my post wasn’t directed at you, personally. Just to clarify that.
 
KjetilK said:
Yes, but that has to be on the basis of examining a whole string of arguments. You cannot simply say: “Well that particular argument didn’t answer all my questions, therefore Christianity must be wrong.” And that is am attitude I see often, especially online.
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I don’t doubt that that has been your experience with some non-Christians, but my hope is that you are not quick to judge their motives. If they are non-Christian, then by definition, “Christianity is wrong” is their default position. You can simply tell them not to talk so fast and say that the argument you proposed so far is only the beginning of a longer sequence of arguments for Christianity.
 
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